After several hours of negotiations on Friday, the Federal Government and the organised private sector have increased their offer for the new minimum wage to N62,000, up from the previous N60,000.
However, organised labour is now proposing N250,000, a significant decrease from its initial demand of N494,000.
This marks the conclusion of the deliberations on the new minimum wage by the tripartite committee, which was established by the Federal Government after several months of discussions.
The committee’s recommendations will be forwarded to President Bola Tinubu, who is expected to present an executive bill to the National Assembly for legislative action.
With the tripartite committee’s work, which began in January this year, now complete, the next steps lie with President Tinubu and subsequently the National Assembly.
Both labour groups, the organised private sector, and the Federal Government agree that the current minimum wage of N30,000 is unsustainable given the country’s present economic reality. However, reaching a consensus on a new minimum wage has been challenging.
While the government and private sector viewed labour’s initial proposal of N494,000 as unrealistic, labour found the N60,000 offer inadequate.
After an ultimatum issued by labour expired on May 31, unions went on strike on June 3, shutting down businesses nationwide. The strike was suspended on Tuesday after the Federal Government pledged to increase the minimum wage to an amount higher than N60,000 and resumed negotiations.
Despite the government’s and private sector’s new offer of N62,000, it remains to be seen if this proposal will be accepted, as workers had previously vowed not to accept minimal increases.
Trade Union Congress (TUC) President Festus Osifo stated on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme that labour would not accept slight additions to the previous N60,000 offer, stressing the need for a substantial increase.
“At the meeting on Friday, they (the tripartite committee) said they would not add anything more to the ₦60,000 but in the meeting of yesterday (Monday), Mr President was able to commit to doing what is more than ₦60,000,” Osifo said.
Continuing, the TUC boss said, “We also told them that it’s not that we’d get to the table and you start adding ₦1, ₦2, ₦3,000 as you were doing and we got some good guarantees here and there that they would do something good.”
Meanwhile, the 36 state governors have expressed that the N60,000 minimum wage proposal by the Federal Government is unsustainable.
According to a statement by Halima Ahmed, Acting Director of Media Affairs and Public Relations of the Forum, many states would need to use their entire monthly allocations from the federation account to pay workers’ salaries if this proposal is implemented. The governors have urged the tripartite committee to agree on a fair and sustainable minimum wage.
